DC Incomes Boom while US Incomes Fall

American incomes have tumbled over the last decade. But for many people in Washington, D.C., it’s been something of a party.

The income of the typical D.C. household rose 23.3% between 2000 and 2012 to an inflation-adjusted $66,583, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, its most comprehensive snapshot of America’s demographic, social and economic trends. During this period, median household incomes for the nation as a whole dropped 6.6% — from $55,030 to $51,371…

The Washington, D.C. metro area — which includes the surrounding suburbs in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia — has it even better, with a median household income of $88,233 that ranks highest among the U.S.’s 25 most populous metro areas.

Washington doesn’t invent smartphones or build cars or record music — instead they invent rules and build bureaucracies and record regulations. The federal government’s key industry is siphoning money from 50 far-flung states and reallocating it to preferred interest groups (after taking an ample service charge, of course).

Are states the new colonies with Washington, D.C. as the unresponsive imperial capital?

When my mother-in-law passed this summer I was around a bunch of establishment GOP types in the DC ‘burbs. Almost to a person they were all lamenting about how the idiots in the hustings no longer viewed them as “conservative.” Surely it was the wingnuts that had changed, not them. “We were their heroes in the 90′s….”

I kept my mouth shut as it wasn’t the place to start a political argument. But I wanted to tell them, “No, you haven’t changed. You’re still the power-hungry statists you’ve always been. The difference is that the people you think of as your base finally figured it out. They elected you to return the republic to sanity and you sold them out. So screw you and your snobbery. And God help us if your snobby little children get their postgraduate Ivy degrees and try to keep up the family business!”

Are states the new colonies with Washington, D.C. as the unresponsive imperial capital?

Well, yes, but at least we have something in common with the Chinese now. Any parent with ambition for his kids will advise them to “go East, young man, and find your fortune there.” Those yearning for the “good” life should seek a position with the Central Committee.

My first post at Ricochet (https://ricochet.com/member-feed/Follow-the-Money) back in April 2011, was about the fact that five of the wealthiest counties in America are DC suburbs. This is not a good thing, people. It is a very bad thing. The federal government needs to be decentralized. Entire departments need to be moved into the heartland of America, where the employees have to live among the people they would rule. If the rest of the world can work from anywhere (thanks to technology), why can’t the Departmenst of Wastefullness and Inefficiency do the same?

Calthaer: “What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?” - Katniss Everdeen · 3 minutes ago

You read my mind. Should we start rounding up children for the Hunger Games?

I’m confused. How is this any different from the 80′s, 90′s, and early 00′s, when nearly all of the wealth created in the U.S. went to New York financiers and investors?

Neither concentration is good, but at least in D.C. we theoretically have a say in how the money’s spent and when we want to turn the spigot off. With the banks, we had to wait for them to mess up and implode, which, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone, isn’t exactly doing us a lot of good.

Spread the love around, I say. Let Washington become a museum piece, D.C. become the State of Columbia, and the seat of our Federal Government be quartered in the local state capitals, moved each appropriate presidential election cycle to the state house from whence hails the new president. Any administration or bureau too cumbersom to fit in a couple of rail cars should be forthwith abolished.